The Link Between Holistic Pulsing, De-Armouring, and Polyvagal Theory

From Armour to Safety: The Embodied Path to Healing

Somatic approaches to healing recognise that trauma, stress, and emotional overwhelm are not held only in the mind, but live in the body and nervous system. Holistic Pulsing, de-armouring, and Polyvagal Theory together offer a deeply embodied, trauma-informed framework for restoring regulation, presence, and embodied resilience.

Rather than analysing experiences, working cognitively or symptom-first, these approaches work with rhythm, presence, and nervous system regulation to allow healing to unfold naturally. They invite the body to release long-held patterns of protection and return to its innate capacity for ease, connection, and flow.

It's about restoring safety, fluidity, and aliveness through the body.

The journey from emotional holding to safety, freedom, and embodied healing.

Rocking: the Language of the Nervous System

Holistic Pulsing is a gentle, rhythmic bodywork modality that uses rocking, pulsing, and oscillatory movements. The practitioner introduces slow, wave-like motions that travel through the joints, tissues, and fluids of the body.

This rhythmic movement, communicates directly with the autonomic nervous system, bypassing analytical thought and inviting deep relaxation. The combination of rocking and pulsing is at the core of Holistic Pulsing, echoing the gentle sway experienced in utero and early infancy — a time when the nervous system learned safety through movement, attunement, and containment.

Through these movements, the body receives non-verbal cues of support, presence, and regulation. Clients often experience a deep sense of being held and met, allowing the nervous system to settle and the body to reconnect with its natural rhythm.

Key effects of Holistic Pulsing include:

• Calming an overactive stress response (fight or flight)

• Supporting the body’s parasympathetic response, allowing rest and repair

• Enhanced interoception (self awareness of bodily sensations and internal cues)

• A profound sense of being held, supported, and grounded

Because Holistic Pulsing does not force change, it is particularly effective for sensitive nervous systems and trauma-informed work, allowing the body to relearn safety and aliveness at its own pace.

De-Armouring: Softening Protective Holding Patterns

De-armouring refers to the gradual release of chronic muscular, fascial, and energetic tension held in the body as a result of stress, trauma, suppression of emotion, or prolonged self-protection.

The concept of "body armour" was first used by psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, who observed that unresolved emotional experiences often become embedded in the body as chronic physical tension and emotional traits, serving as subconscious protective defences against fear, pain, and vulnerability. Early approaches to de-armouring often sought to break through this armour using forceful physical pressure, intense emotional catharsis, confrontational techniques, or strong breathing practices, based on the belief that release required pushing past resistance. While these methods sometimes produced dramatic expression and release, they frequently overlooked the nervous system’s need for safety and could lead to overwhelm or re-traumatisation. Contemporary somatic practices now recognise armour as an intelligent protective response, best softened through safety, presence, pacing, and nervous system regulation rather than force.

“Armour” forms when the body learns that it is not safe to fully feel, express, or relax. Over time, this can manifest as:

• Tight jaws, shoulders, hips, or pelvic floor

• Restricted breathing

• Emotional numbness or overwhelm

• Difficulty with intimacy, trust, or embodiment

Rather than aggressively “breaking through” these layers, modern de-armouring, especially when combined with gentle modalities like Holistic Pulsing, prioritises safety, consent, and pacing.

Through rhythmic movement, presence, and attuned touch, the body is invited to unwind its defences naturally. Emotions, memories, or sensations may arise, not as re-traumatisation, but as completion: the nervous system finally finishing what it could not at the time.

Holistic Pulsing supports this process beautifully, by gently dissolving armour and restoring flow without overwhelm.

Polyvagal Theory: The Science of Safety and Connection

Developed by Stephen Porges, Polyvagal Theory provides a neurobiological framework for understanding how the nervous system responds to safety, threat, and trauma — and why approaches like Holistic Pulsing and de-armouring are so effective.

Polyvagal Theory identifies three primary nervous system states:

• Ventral Vagal (Safety & Connection) — a state of calm presence, social engagement, and emotional availability. In this state, the body can rest, digest, and repair.

• Sympathetic (Fight or Flight) — a mobilised state designed for action and survival. In this state, heart rate increases, muscles tense, and alertness rises to respond to perceived threat. While essential for survival, when chronically activated, it can lead to anxiety, stress, and hypervigilance.

• Dorsal Vagal (Shutdown) — a protective collapse response characterised by numbness, withdrawal, or dissociation when threat feels overwhelming or inescapable.

  
  

Trauma is not defined solely by events that occurred, but by a nervous system that was unable to return to safety afterwards. When the body remains stuck in survival states, tension, armour, and emotional holding patterns persist.

Holistic Pulsing works directly with these nervous system states by:

• Offering a predictable, soothing rhythm — This acts as a ventral vagal cue, signalling safety to the nervous system.

• Creating non-verbal co-regulation — The practitioner’s presence and attuned movement help the client’s system feel held and supported.

• Allowing activation and release without overwhelm — Pulsing and rocking enable the body to discharge tension safely, whether it comes from fight/flight energy or collapsed dorsal vagal patterns.

  
  

As the nervous system experiences safety in the body, chronic tension and protective armour can gradually soften. Through this process, clients often regain fluidity of movement, emotional resilience, and a deeper capacity for connection, showing how gentle bodywork and nervous system regulation work hand-in-hand to restore vitality and presence.

Where These Approaches Meet

Holistic Pulsing, de-armouring, and Polyvagal Theory come together to create a deeply integrative healing process, where theory and practice meet in the body. Holistic Pulsing provides rhythm and movements that guide the nervous system towards regulation, and release of chronic tension and protective holding patterns. Polyvagal Theory gives the framework for understanding how the nervous system responds to safety, threat, and overwhelm, guiding the work so that de-armouring happens without re-traumatisation.

In practice, Holistic Pulsing becomes the embodied application of these principles. Attuned rhythmic movements serve as non-verbal cues of containment and safety, facilitating activation of ventral vagal pathways, and supporting nervous system co-regulation. This allows states of activation (fight or flight) or collapse (shutdown) to resolve safely, bringing Polyvagal Theory into direct, lived practice. With regulation established, the body is given permission to soften armour, release stored tension, and complete unfinished responses. In this way, the theories of de-armouring and Polyvagal Theory are translated from concept into felt, embodied experience.

Together, these approaches do not seek to “fix” the body. Rather, they listen to it, follow its rhythms, and prioritise regulation, allowing release to emerge safely while supporting fluidity, resilience, and a profound sense of presence and embodied aliveness.

Conclusion

Holistic Pulsing can be understood as the embodied practice of de-armouring informed by Polyvagal Theory. It is a hands-on, rhythmic, and attuned approach through which the body experiences safety and regulation, allowing tension to release and natural flow to be restored — translating theoretical principles into felt, embodied healing.

Through this practice, the body can return to its natural rhythm, aliveness, and resilience, supporting a sustained sense of presence and well-being.